Shorten Gantlet Nominees Run to the Cabinet

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If you think it's difficult for a president's cabinet nominees
to sit through hearings on Capitol Hill and run the gantlet of
hostile questions, consider that the televised portion is only the
end of the process.

Long before they testify, these nominees have already spent far too
much time filling out forms.

A few years ago, scholars at the James A. Baker Institute
calculated that the average nominee must answer 234 questions
before he faces senators. Almost 10 percent of those
questions are identical and more than 40 percent ask for the same
information in slightly different formats. Some forms are designed
to be filled out on an old-fashioned typewriter, while others must
be completed in ink.

All this simply reinforces the conclusion reached in 1996 by the
Twentieth Century Fund's task force on presidential appointments.
It found there are "too many questions, too many forms, too many
clearances" for nominees.

It's too late for this year's nominees, but there's an answer that
would help make the process easier for the next administration. A
group of organizations, including think tanks, universities and
non-partisan foundations has put together a software program called
"Nomination Forms Online."

NFO allows nominees to put all the information they need to provide
into one database, so they can answer each question one time. The
software then fills in all the required forms. Before 2008,
Congress and the White House should agree to accept NFO, or some
similar program, for all nominees. All forms should be short,
simple and computer-friendly.

There are other ways to streamline the nominations process, too.
Because of an executive order issued during the Eisenhower
administration, full FBI field background checks are required for
any nominee who is subject to senate confirmation. Of course, the
number of such nominees has skyrocketed since the 1950s, and thus
the time and money spent investigating them has as well.

It makes sense that cabinet secretaries or those who will be
working with national security information would have to pass a
complete background check. But such investigations shouldn't be
required for lower-level nominees in, for example, the Education or
Interior departments, and even for many part-time boards and
commissions.

Another headache is financial disclosure. Nobody should go into
public service to make a buck, so it makes sense to insist that
nominees account for their financial holdings. However, the forms
nominees must fill out are far too intrusive. For example, they're
often required to account for every stock in every mutual fund they
hold, and certify that this information is accurate within 48 hours
of their confirmation hearing.

Well, few people know from day to day which stocks are in their
mutual funds. The whole point of buying such funds is so you don't
have to track your holdings on a daily basis. Nominees ought to be
allowed to put their stocks into a blind trust that will manage the
funds while the nominee is in government.

We also need to speed up the confirmation process. It simply takes
too long to get a job as a cabinet official these days.

A study by the Constitution Project at Georgetown University and
Professor Wendy Martinek of Binghamton University determined that
in 2001, it took an average of 112 days for successful nominees to
be confirmed.

That's a substantial increase from President Clinton's first term,
when the wait was 52 days. However, it continues a disturbing
pattern: Nominees waited an average of 62 days in the first Bush
administration, 46 days in President Reagan's second term and just
36 days in Reagan's first term.

If we continue to make the process more intrusive and more
expensive -- some nominees spend tens of thousands of dollars
hiring advisors to guide them through the nomination maze and make
sure they dot every "i" and cross every "t" -- all we're going to
do is frighten off the most-qualified candidates.

Directing a cabinet agency is difficult enough. There's no reason
to make the nomination process equally exhausting.